How To Google

a tutorial by: nofrillz

t seems the trend at the moment is to do a basic google search before asking the question they were hell bent on spaming up the forum with anyway. Here’s a few small tips.

1) Think of a good topic title
– Why think of a topic title when searching? I’m not sure, but for some reason 90% of the threads I find on here usually have an answer in the first few google results when i type the thread title into google.

2) Actually try to search
– This is getting more common by the day: “Oh I searched google but it sucked so how do i …..”. No. Bad user. When we say search the forums/google/msdn it’s because we know that the answer is out there, but you do need to open your eyes. If you find an article that could help but doesn’t, then post a link to it. This at least suggests that you’ve put some effort in.

3) Be more specific
– Googling “process infection” comes up with a bunch of NHS websites. However “process infection c++” immediately shows a bunch of tutorials.

4) Be less specific
– This one speaks for itself. It is incredibly easy to copy and paste a whole line of error message into google and get 2 results, both of which are in Russian. Instead of bugging xweasel at this point, try taking off quotes or getting rid of the specific parts of the error message. You might surprise yourself!

5) Try something new
– You can waste a lot of time searching for the same thing only to find it’s not what you want. Do you see any common words that come up on pages that you check in your search? Try searching for them and see where it takes you.